


The Man in the Suit

by imkerfuffled



Series: Lucia Castillo, Helper of Superheroes [5]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, rated for language, slight spoilers for the end of Agents of SHIELD season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-05-09 01:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5520884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imkerfuffled/pseuds/imkerfuffled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson pays a visit to the little comic book store on the corner of Union Avenue and runs into a certain cashier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jake

**Author's Note:**

> And now a flashback! This happens directly after chapter two on[ A Trip to the Comic Book Store](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5002447/chapters/11493310)

Coulson used to love the little comic book store on the corner of Union Avenue and Lincoln Parkway. Its old-timey feel reminded him of the comic stores from his childhood, from the cozy atmosphere to the slightly musty smell of old paper permeating the air. The Bedford Stuyvesant location as well couldn’t be better, and every time he stopped by Clint’s New York apartment he always made sure to visit the store, since the two buildings stood no more than a few blocks apart from each other.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had come here. Certainly, it was before his ‘death’ in Loki’s invasion. Since then, he hadn’t had the time to come back, or any reason to. Even now, his feet tried to take him past the entrance to Lincoln Parkway and on to Clint’s street, but he stuffed his hands deep in the pocket of his trench coat and forced himself to turn the corner. He told himself that his hunched shoulders were a result of the crisp November air and not any lingering nostalgia for his old team.

As if summoned by his thoughts, he nearly ran smack dab into two girls as he rounded the corner. The taller had light brown skin of ambiguous ethnicity, an explosion of dark curls, and a stylish black coat, but the other…

The other wore a Blackhawk uniform.

Years ago, someone (probably Natasha) had decided as a joke to create Sims characters for everyone in SHIELD, but once Fury found out that his character had—much to the amusement of the woman in question—fallen in love with Maria Hill’s character, he shut that down. So in retaliation, Natasha began creating love children. By the end, Fury had fathered children to nearly all the women and at least half the men of SHIELD. Fury and Hill’s fictional child was named Scary Ass Motherfucker and had inherited her dad’s eyepatch. Fury and Stark’s fictional child was named Rich Ass Motherfucker (Ass, Natasha claimed, was a family name) and had inherited his other father’s facial hair. Coulson had never been brave enough to ask about his fictional child with the director, though he couldn’t imagine her not making one.

After Natasha exhausted Fury’s potential, she had moved on to Clint. Clint and Bobby got a fictional child; Clint and Lance got a fictional child; Clint, Bobby, _and_ Lance got a fictional child named Orgy Baby. Clint and Laura did not get a fictional child, because they already had an actual child. Clint and Natasha’s fictional child was named Clintasha Romanarton, codename Blackhawk, and she had, by some miracle of hacking, been given a bow and a Black Widow uniform. Coulson could still remember all the times Natasha had teased Clint about that child, and before he ‘died’ he’d lost count of how many times she said things like, “But what about the baby?” or “We’ll do it for the baby,” or “Clint, you have a _wife?_ How could you do this to our baby?” (Usually followed by, “We don’t have a futzing baby, Nat, I am _married,_ and I have a _child_ that is not _your_ child, and _Laura, stop laughing, you’re encouraging her!”)_

Over the years, Coulson had sometimes wondered what became of Clintasha Romanarton, and now he suddenly found himself staring at a real life replica of her.

“I am so sorry, we weren’t looking where we were going!” the girl said, nearly falling backwards in her effort to not run into Coulson. Her friend had to catch her by the bow strap.

“Don’t worry about it,” Coulson assured her, “I should have been watching too. Nice Blackhawk cosplay, by the way.” If he had paused to watch, he would have seen her and her friend staring openmouthed at him for being the first person to get the name right, but instead he walked straight through the door into the comic shop.

The place had changed since last he came here. He noticed with delight that they still had an abundant stock of Captain America paraphernalia, though, despite the addition of entire sections dedicated to the Avengers, which obviously couldn’t have been there before Coulson implemented the Avengers Initiative. But the most drastic change was the atmosphere. Now, nearly imperceptible to anyone without expert training, the air seemed to ooze tension. He saw it in the way other customers glanced nervously around them and at the checkout counter, and especially in the aggression with which the cashier scanned the items of a father and child at the register. Coulson decided to check it out.

He grabbed the nearest item (a novel about Tony Stark’s illegitimate child. Coulson wondered if she had Ass in her name, especially considering her appearance on the cover) and waited in line behind the pair at the checkout. Once they left, he stepped up to the counter and set his book down. The cashier, a blond haired teenaged boy whose nametag read ‘Jake,’ gave him a skeptical look when he saw it.

“A present for my daughter,” Coulson lied easily. Come to think of it, Skye would probably get a kick out of the book, and Fitz could use a distraction from looking for Jemma.

Jake grunted and began scanning the book, leaving Coulson to try to piece together what had happened. From the boy’s jerky motions, something had clearly angered him, but the hunch in his shoulders and the peculiar vulnerability in his scowl suggested embarrassment as well. Coulson decided to take a wild stab at the reason.

“Did you see those kids outside, with the Blackhawk costume?” he said conversationally, carefully watching for Jake’s reaction. The boy stiffened, then continued his job with a casual air that Coulson could tell was manufactured.

“Yeah, they came in here on accident,” Jake said, trying to play it off as a laugh, “Got lost on the way to the doll store.”

“Hmmm,” was all Coulson would say for the rest of the visit.

 

For some inexplicable reason, the cashier found himself sighing in relief when the man in the nondescript suit and coat left the shop. Something about the man’s small, icy half-smile—an expression that, coming from someone younger and more intimidating, might almost be seen as a threat—made the hairs on the back of his neck refuse to lie flat.


	2. Jackie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Shows up six months late with an old meme and a new chapter*
> 
> Also, as I say in the new third chapter of [Further Adventures in the Comic Book Store](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5449223/chapters/12595340), I inevitably end up collecting songs for anything I stick with long enough, so I figured, what the hell, [I might as well stick them in a playlist.](http://8tracks.com/imkerfuffled/lucia) So, like, go check it out.

Jacquelyn Jones’ first day at her new job passed rather uneventfully. She learned the rules of the place and how to find everything with the help of Brian, the employee assigned to train her. She got the hang of the store’s truly atrocious labeling system. She fielded two conversations with customers who most definitely were not always right. In fact, she did so without fantasizing about stabbing either of them, though Brian said that was allowed as long as she didn’t progress to _actually_ stabbing anybody. She decided to keep that in mind.

The second day at her new job, she met the store’s friendly neighborhood Deadpool, which was… an interesting experience. He had a lot to say about Spiderman and the way recent comics had begun leaning towards a characterization influenced by J Jonah Jameson’s editorials. Even after he left, Jackie couldn’t tell whether he was an extremely dedicated roleplayer, or the genuine item himself. Brian said that was a normal reaction.

The third day looked to be even less exciting than the first, until the balding man in the plain gray suit came through the door. The instant the bell rang to signify a new customer coming in, Brian muttered, “Oh crap.”

“What?” Jackie asked, eyeing the man’s single glove on his left hand.

“That’s the guy I was telling you about, that Jake was so afraid of,” Brian whispered. For the last three days, Brian had complained almost endlessly about the person Jackie replaced. Apparently, he had just handed in his resignation letter one day and refused to come back to work or explain, but everyone suspected the involvement of the Man in the Suit.

“The Man in the Suit is a legend,” Brian had told her, “Jake was _terrified_ of him, and no one knew why. There were all sorts of rumors of course—you can probably guess some of them—but every time this guy would show up, Jake nearly shat himself, and his eyes went _huge_. Like, this big.” He’d used his fingers to give her an exaggerated idea of the size.

“Did this suit guy do anything?” Jackie had asked.

“Nope,” Brian popped the end of the word, “Just went around like any normal person. I never actually saw him, but Mickey says he was real polite.”

Now, Jackie could hardly believe the rumors about him. The man looked completely harmless, like the kind of guy you’d expect to find pulling up to a suburban two-story in a minivan with two kids, not terrifying the hapless employees of a comic book store.

Just as the thought crossed her mind, he caught her eye and gave a small, tight smile. The kind of self-satisfied smile you’d expect from someone who saw their plans to drive a hapless employee out of his job fulfilled.

 _That’s ridiculous,_ Jackie scolded herself, _It’s just the polite thing to do when you make awkward eye contact with a stranger. Stop giving in to Brian’s paranoia._

The man made his way to the comics section, and as soon as he passed out of sight behind a cardboard cutout that would be larger than life if it wasn’t of Thor, Brian whispered, “Well. That’s that. Been nice knowing you.” He scooped his jacket off his stool and stuffed his phone into his pocket as if getting ready to leave.

“What are you doing?” Jackie hissed, grabbing him by the arm.

“I’m outta here,” he said, “No way am I sticking around for whatever he’s got in store for you. I want to live a long and happy life, with a hot wife and paid off college debt. I’m too young to die!”

Jackie almost rolled her eyes as his dramatics, but instead she gripped his arm tighter as he tried to squirm away. “You can’t just leave.”

“Sure I can. My job was to train you. Ta da, you’re trained! Bye-bye!” He finally twisted out of her grasp and, with one last nervous glance toward the Man in the Suit, hurried out the door. Jackie let out a string of curses under her breath, most of which involved certain words beginning with “fucking” and “pussy.”

Far sooner than she would have liked, she found herself face to face with the Man in the Suit when he came up to the register with his purchases.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” he said pleasantly.

Jackie stared.

“The forecast kept predicting rain today, but there’s not a cloud in the sky,” he continued, though with slight concern in his voice at Jackie’s expression.

Jackie began running her scanner over the items on the counter: a large stack of Captain America comics, a book titled _Steve Rogers: Man, Soldier, Legend,_ and a box of Captain America figurines. She began to wonder if Brian’s stories were all an elaborate hazing prank on the new employee. Suddenly, she felt incredibly stupid for almost falling for it.

“So,” she said, holding up the book before she scanned it, “You like Cap?”

“Ah, you could say that,” the man said with a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth.

“I’ve got a friend who’s absolutely in love with him,” she said. After that, the conversation petered off. Usually, she could easily keep up an exchange with customers for the few minutes they stood at the checkout, but, somehow, mistaking someone for some sort of mastermind bent on terrorizing comic store employees made that difficult. She fished around for something to say. “You… come here often?”

“More so in the past,” the man said, “I used to know someone who lived in the area, and I’d drop by on my free days, but now, what with work, I barely get any time off.”

Jackie pulled a sympathetic face, and they trailed off again. She picked up the box of figurines—one action figure per each of Cap’s various uniforms—and pointed at one of the Caps: the third in the lineup. “I am so glad he’s not using that uniform from the invasion anymore.”

For some inexplicable reason, the man glanced down at his shoes and began fiddling with the edge of his jacket sleeve in embarrassment. “Well, it can’t have been _that_ bad, can it?” he asked.

“The uniform? Yeah, it was totally impractical,” Jackie said, “It hardly provided any actual protection in battle, and it didn’t even have anywhere to store his shield when he wasn’t using it. It looked like a modern version of his war bond costume.” A tiny voice in the back of her head told her to shut up and stop arguing with this customer, because that was exactly what got her fired from her last job, and she didn’t want to tell Adrian that she couldn’t work _here_ anymore either, did she?

Luckily, the man in the suit didn’t look upset, merely defensive. Jackie had found that the merely defensive ones were far less likely to complain to a manager.

“Well, that was its intended purpose. Probably,” he said, “Think about it; SHIELD had just pulled him out of the ice a few months earlier. They didn’t want to send him into battle just yet. That would be cruel.”

“SHIELD was Hydra, though, so I’m not sure how concerned they’d be with cruelty,” Jackie said, “They probably hoped he’d be killed in that battle, so they’d be rid of him.”

“But most of SHIELD was still SHIELD. I’m sure an organization founded in part _because_ of Cap’s legacy still held enough people with strong opinions on the matter to overrule any behind-the-scenes influences,” the man argued.

“So you’re blaming the bad costume design on plain idiocy, then?” Jackie said, while her brain screamed at her to _shut up shut up shut up!_

“No!” the man said adamantly, “I’m blaming it on bad timing. That uniform was meant for the announcement of his resurrection, not for battle. I—SHIELD couldn’t have predicted an alien invasion would force him to use it in actual combat.”

“Hmmm. Guess that makes sense,” Jackie admitted.

“Of course it does,” the man smiled.

Jackie suddenly realized that while they’d talked, she had automatically scanned and bagged all of the man’s purchases, and now she found herself with an empty counter. The man swiped his credit card, and as she got everything in order they chatted a little longer, about Captain America and--with a finger tap on the  _Steve Rogers_ book as she dropped it in a plastic bag--the man behind the mask. As she discovered, he was just as much an expert on Steve Rogers as he was on Captain America, and just as excited to geek out about it as Adrian.

Finally, Jackie couldn't justify continuing their conversation anymore against the growing line of customers behind him. She apologized and handed him his bag, saying, "I never got your name."

“Phil,” he said, “Phil Coulson. And yours?”

“Jackie Jones.”

“Well, have a nice day, Jackie Jones,” he smiled.

“I will,” she promised, “Come back soon!”

Something told her that, despite her awful start to the conversation, he would.


End file.
